


seafoam, or, the littlest mermaid makes her choice

by helleborehound



Series: the prince won't save you [2]
Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Eating Disorders, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, POV Female Character, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:14:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2454359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helleborehound/pseuds/helleborehound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If I were you, I wouldn’t believe the stories that humans tell about ocean-dwellers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	seafoam, or, the littlest mermaid makes her choice

If I were you, I wouldn’t believe the stories that humans tell about ocean-dwellers.

Remember that stories are always more telling of the tellers than of those of whom the story is told. Bards and minstrels have their keep to earn, and they are not above weaving fancies from whole cloth. You would do well to doubt the words of seamen and lighthouse-keepers, too. Sea-cows and driftwood are easily mistaken for other shapes in the water, and the mind does strange things in the company of rum and loneliness.

Mark my words: only fools and sailors ascribe truth to human stories of the sea.

Sound travels strangely in the water. It stretches and warps, pulls into twisted shapes like the glassy rock that forms near cracks in the ocean floor. The speech of ocean-dwellers is spare. Legend has it that we learned to sign before we learned to speak, and all ocean-dwellers, no matter how rich or powerful, are taught the simple signs.

There are many ocean-dwellers born deaf, born mute. It matters little that I cannot hear. It matters more that I, a noble-born, cannot sing. And yet, neither of these truly matters, because the greater fault lies elsewhere.

Slenderness is prized in sea-maidens. The line of the collarbone, the stark jut of the wrist, the ribcage in relief. These are all marks of beauty, and of these, I have none. Beneath my skin sits a solid, stubborn layer of fat, like that of a seal in winter. My shoulders are broad, my tail, short. My eyes, wide-set and kelp-brown.

I learned early on that I would never be lovely in the eyes of others. My mother was dead, and my governess indifferent, my education brusque and careless. For all that my father was adviser to the sea-king, any suitors would be few and far between. As for my father himself, he preferred to devote the little time he had for his own affairs to shaping the minds of my brothers. No-one paid me any mind. Unheard and unseen, I was free to come and go, and so I decided I would live to please myself.

It is not the poor who starve here, under the sea. The peasant folk brew their tea with milk from the sea cows and eat herring and mackerel with buttered laver bread. The noble mermen, too, have their share of pleasures: gull’s egg custard with sweet shrimp and samphire, poached monkfish liver with sea-grape must, lobster smothered in cream rich with its own coral. 

But when the palace kitchens prepare meals for the noble merwomen: Shredded kelp, the stringy sort that sticks in the teeth. Unseasoned sea lettuce. Octopus cooked hard in the steam vents, enough to make a jaw ache from all the chewing. The tiniest crabs, all chitin, the sort that take a dozen and the better part of an hour’s picking to produce a bare mouthful. As though a hungry belly might give up, in seeing such poor return for labor. 

Despite my governess’ rote protestations, I refused a fate of dabberlock broth and steamed whitefish. Instead, I preferred to steal food from the banquet kitchens. First the odds and ends: scraps of fatty tuna, trimmings from pressed shad roe. Strips of dulse to chew, blades of sea-palm to nibble. As I grew bolder, I would reach into the cooling kettles and pilfer bladderwrack pouches filled with milksweet, and slip ladlefuls of green caviar right out of the seasoning pots.

I learned, too, to steal food from palace functions. Not state banquets – there were too many watching eyes at those – but celebrations at which all present would be tipsy on sea-grape wine. On one particularly lively night, I slipped into the hall and made away with a whole platter of oysters, baked in cream and heaped high with sea urchin roe. I swam for the palace gardens, eyeing the coral maze as a hiding place in which to enjoy my spoils.

I felt a hand on my arm at the entrance pillar. I turned to see the youngest of the seven sea-princesses: golden-haired, blue-eyed, and said to have the sweetest voice of all. I braced myself. Nothing good could come of being noticed – and by a princess, at that.

Instead of anger or disgust, she smiled - completely free of guile – and gestured for me to keep moving. Uncertain, I swam into a deep thicket of long reeds with the littlest princess at my side.

“Could I have an oyster?” She signed her words as she spoke, and seemed pleased by my surprise.

“My governess taught me to sign. Her sisters were like you.” A hesitant breath. “Please?”

I took in the jut of her collarbones, the stark edges of her ribs, and the desperation in her eyes. My hands moved as if they weren’t my own.

_You can have more than one, if you like._

We abandoned decorum. Together we devoured the oysters, scraping and licking to get at every last trace of cream. Once we’d reduced the platter to a pile of pearlescent shell, the littlest princess wore a blissful smile, heedless of the urchin roe smeared on her chin.

“Thank you. I take meals with my sisters, and they’ve been preparing for tonight’s ball. We’ve barely eaten at all these past few tides.”

Slenderness is prized in sea-maidens. And princesses must be the most delicate of all.

The next day, I felt a hand on my arm again, as I prepared to enter the kitchens.

“I had hoped I would find you today! I want to show you a secret.” Again the princess was smiling, and I could see nothing but genuine pleasure in her smile.

_Wait for me at the maze. I won’t be long._

I went back to the coral maze with two bladderwrack pouches of milksweet in hand. Milksweet is a delicacy made from the milk of sea-cows that have been fed on sweet-reed, heated until it turns thick and golden. The littlest princess had never seen this, and I showed her how to pierce the wrack with the point of a tooth and suck out the milksweet within. Her eyes went wide with delight, and much to my surprise, I found that I, too, was smiling.  

The littlest princess brought me to the far edge of the gardens, right near where they bordered a trench with a fast-moving current. Inside a coral grove was a cave, and in the cave a treasure-trove.

Bottles and trinkets, masses of brightly colored seaglass. Land-dwellers’ objects: an oval mirror with a silver frame wrought into strange flowers, a carved wooden figure of a woman’s head and shoulders, eyes wide and mesmerizing. Jewels of all sorts, rings and necklaces and bangles to adorn a school of noblewomen.

_How did you come by all of this?_

“I like to explore the shipwrecks when I can get away from the palace. My sisters make my excuses so long as I bring them jewels.” The smile that curved at the corner of her mouth was distinctly mischievous. “As you can see, I have ensured that they will be making my excuses for quite some time.”

I smiled back, again. Something about her smile compelled me to return it.

“Is there something that might catch your fancy? I’d like to present you with a gift.” Her gestures were careful and grave, and there was no levity in her expression. Gift-giving is a serious matter amongst ocean-dwellers, a tally of favors given and owed.

I looked. To do otherwise would be unthinkable. I had no use for jewels, but perhaps I could find a token amongst the land-dwellers’ objects, a curio or trinket of some sort.

Then I saw the dagger. A gaudy thing, to be sure - gold-handled and inlaid with glittering red stones – but beautifully balanced, and wickedly sharp.

The mer-boys, in the first step towards coming of age as mermen, receive knives. Even the nobles, the ones who only ever hunt tuna for sport, carry knives. There would be no need to steal from the kitchens if I could hunt on my own.

_This, please._

Something of my thoughts must have shown in my expression, because rather than engage in a formal clasping of hands, the littlest princess instead picked up the knife, kissed me on each cheek, and then presented it to me – handle forward – in the fashion of the knife ceremony.

“May your blade sing true,” she declared.

***

From that moment on, it became common for the littlest princess to seek me out for company. Together we stole away: she to go exploring reefs of shipwrecks, and I to seek out oyster beds and sea urchins. I made off with a spear from a store of ceremonial armor, and I learned to watch for the flash of silvery scales that signaled a school of herring or mackerel.

Better yet, we would explore Abovesea. Humans are fools to think that merfolk know nothing of the land. There are islands that have belonged to the merfolk long before the land-dwellers ever found them, with caves in which we keep stores, for even the ocean has its lean years. Spaces where we prepare delicacies that cannot be made underwater, beaches where we gather delights from the shore.

My favorite was a series of islands where beach plums grew thickly, and we could dig in the sand for turtle eggs. We would lie in the shallows, gorged and sticky with sweet-tart fruit, and bask in the warmth of the sun. Somewhere along the way, I had grown to enjoy the company of the littlest princess.

I learned that the littlest princess had days filled with lessons: singing, dancing, and deportment. She dined with her sisters under the watchful eye of ladies-in-waiting, fed a grim, steady diet of dabberlock broth and shredded kelp. I would lay my hand on her belly and feel it rumble, count the stark edges of her ribs. And I would do my best to sate her hunger.

At times when the court was preoccupied with its own dramas – courtiers caught in clandestine affairs, diplomatic envoys to charm and flatter – the littlest princess could slip away more easily.

On the eve of her third sister’s initiation into society, she caught me by the kitchens, eyes dancing with mischief.

“All the palace are too busy to pay me any mind today, or tomorrow. We can go on a proper adventure.”

_Where?_

“Let’s go Abovesea, out to where the land-dwellers live!”

She wore a look of such delight, I hadn’t the heart to protest. Armed with knife and spear, fortified with a net bags of provisions (strips of dulse and a whole slab of poached monkfish liver – a good haul from the kitchens), we swam into a swift-moving current and rode our way towards the far shore, hand-in-hand.

We surfaced in a clear, calm bay, with cliffs on one side and a long stretch of beach on the other. There was nary a seagull, let alone a human, in sight. The water was warm and clear, and we were content to float as we ate, passing my blade back and forth to cut slices of the rich, dense liver.

Then I spotted something on the horizon. A human craft. Not a ship, but a little boat, listing at an odd angle. The little princess and I exchanged the briefest of glances – and then swam towards it.

There was just the one human – a male, as best as I could tell – bobbing in the water like a piece of driftwood. We each hooked an arm around him and began towing him towards the beach. Soon he started to cough and splutter. And then he looked at us, wild and panicked and thrashing, like a sea cow caught in a web of driftwrack. Sea cows, when panicked, can die from their fear. I suspected that the same might be true of land-dwellers.

The littlest princess wasn’t fazed in the slightest. She opened her mouth, and I knew from the rise and fall of her chest that she was singing. I watched the panic in his eyes fade to calm. We brought him onto the beach as easily as one might net a stunned tuna.

“Merchildren. How strange and wondrous! I don’t suppose you understand my speech, do you?”

I could see that the littlest princess could not make sense of the sounds from his mouth, but I could read the words from his lips well enough.

“Thank the stars that you came by when you did! I would have been lost, for sure. The next time I venture on an expedition, I’ll have to bring a crew. I am not much of a sailor, I fear.”

The land-dweller seemed to expect no response from us, content to keep spilling words from his mouth. Then he looked us over more closely, and he turned to me.

“Tsk. Your sister needs feeding. I can see her bones, the poor thing.”

He fumbled for the leather satchel that was still tangled about his waist, and pulled out a little sack woven from some kind of grass. “Here. We call them toffee chews, though I suppose now they’re more saltwater taffy. I haven’t the slightest clue if you have such things under the sea, but I imagine all children like sweets.”

The land-dweller’s words were strange, but I knew he was offering us something to eat. The princess and I were quick to stuff our mouths with these strange little lumps – hard to chew, like octopus, but rich and sticky like the best milksweet.

“Oh, if the palace cook could see you! She’d have you eating dumplings in fowl gravy, and steamed puddings with jam and cream.” The prince had a sleek, well-fed look to him, and I guessed that he would be the sort of man with a roundness about the middle by the time his hair turned grey.

As the princess and I ate, the prince’s speech grew harder and harder to follow – I wasn’t sure what a “diatom” might be, though he seemed greatly preoccupied with it. The littlest princess and I, finished with our unexpected meal, knelt in the sand and waited. Finally, the prince noticed that we were watching him expectantly, and shook his head, startled, as though waking from a dream.

“Well! I’d best make my way back to the palace. Such a pity about my samples. I’m sure I had some truly marvelous specimens. Still, I’ll live to see another expedition, thanks to your help. You have the most heartfelt gratitude of the kingdom and court, little merchildren.”

With that, he set off away from the shore.

“How strange! I wonder what he was saying?”

_I read his speech. He said you needed feeding. Also, I think he might have been a prince._

The corner of her mouth curled in wry amusement. “A prince said I needed feeding? Land-dwellers are nothing like us, are they? Still, I wouldn’t have refused another sack of that milksweet.” 

***

Strange as it was, the encounter soon slipped my mind, forgotten in the face of bigger fears. Somewhere, in the midst of our adventures, the littlest princess had come of age. She would attend her first formal ball, and the diplomats would negotiate for the best treaties and alliances. All eyes in the court would be upon her.

I saw no sign of her for several tides. Finally, on the eve of her initiation into society, I found her in the corridor by the kitchens.

Her hair had been threaded with seed pearls and braided to form a diadem to hold back the remainder of her long, waving tresses. Her navel had been decorated with a tiny golden seahorse. The fine webbing of her dorsal fin and tail had been pierced with two dozen golden hoops, and a golden chain ran through them, hobbling her movement and forcing her to travel as slowly as a sea-snail. From a distance, it looked as though she were gliding through the water, barely moving at all.

“How do I look?”

I wanted to tell her she was beautiful, but my hands moved of their own accord.

_Trapped._

A bitter smile. “The only honesty I’ve had from anyone tonight.” 

I lifted my hands to respond, but words wouldn’t come. Instead, I took her hands in mine, and hoped that she would understand what I could not say.

She smiled again, and there was something of her usual mischief in her eyes. “Be sure to steal some oysters in cream tonight. I hate to think of them being wasted on all those pompous sea-slugs. I’ll see you at the maze tomorrow.”

Morning found me in the maze, pouches of milksweet and a net bag of sweet scallops in hand. When the littlest princess swam up, she moved carefully, as though she’d been tossed by eddies during a bad storm. She accepted a pouch of milksweet, but shook her head at the scallops.

“My tail aches from the fin chain. My head aches from all the wine.”

_And the prince?_

A dark look crossed her face. “Let’s not speak of him.”

We sat in the reeds, and the littlest princess rested her head against my shoulder. Perhaps it was only the light, but her golden hair seemed dull, and the fine skin beneath her eyes looked dark and bruised. I wanted to speak, but again, the words wouldn’t come.

“The sea-slugs are negotiating today. Much of it is posturing about territory with no strategic value. I expect I’ll be betrothed by the time the tide changes.”

 _Perhaps it won’t be so bad._  I knew they were foolish words as soon as they left my fingers, but my own silence was wearing upon me.

“I expect it will be worse.” The words were light and quick, almost careless. “I won’t do it.” 

_What will you do?_

“I’ll run away. Abovesea. The prince was kind, wasn’t he? Land-dwellers must live better lives than ocean-dwellers.”

I tried to hide my shock.  _How would you do that? You can’t live on land._

She raised her head, and I could see the stubborn tilt of her chin. “I’ll go to the witch. She can give me legs.”

The witch. A healer, but no ordinary healer, or so the story went. Impossible to say where rumor left off and the truth began.

_Is that wise? They say the witch drives hard bargains._

“Can you offer me a better choice?”

As much as I wanted to protest, I saw the truth of her question.

_I’ll come with you._

“No. They say she’ll only deal with those who come to her alone.”

 _How will I know you’re safe? Will I ever see you again?_  

“Do you remember the beach where we found the prince? Come and find me there.”

***

There was a great hue and cry when the littlest princess was found missing. I offered no counsel, and no-one asked. There was fear that she had been taken by a great shark or stung by a pufferfish, and for a while, all comings and goings were closely watched.

Tides passed, and eventually the guards dwindled back to their usual number. None tried to stop me as I left the palace and found a current to carry me to shore.

A figure stood on the beach, and it waved furiously as I swam up to the rocks.

Her gestures were rapid with excitement.

“It’s been so long. I’ve waited here every day. I feared you’d never come to see me!”

_We’ve been kept under close guard. They thought you had been taken by a great shark._

“No. Here I am, still alive.”

It was high summer, and the sun bore down full and relentless. I could barely see for the brightness of the light. Only when I squinted did I realise.

Her hands moved. Her lips did not.

_Why aren’t you speaking?_

_I can’t. The witch took my voice._

_Did the prince remember you?_

_No. Not at all._

I looked more closely. Her long hair had been worked into braids with ropes of pearls, piled up like an elaborate bird’s nest. Her waist had been bound with a sort of cage and pulled in so far I feared she might snap in two. Her collarbones were stark, and the bones of her wrists, too. It took all I had to keep my expression calm and untroubled.

_What happened to the cook? The one who was to feed you?_

She smiled – a terrible, bitter smile.  _The land dwellers like their children plump and round-cheeked. They prefer their maidens slender and frail._

_What do they feed you?_

Her answer was enough to raise bile in the back of my throat. Green stems, stringy like kelp, in sour sauce. The flesh from land cows, hard and tough and tasteless. Eggs from flightless gulls, cooked to the consistency of jellied laver. Served from plates so thin and fine as to be nearly transluscent, eaten with knives and forks of silver, and all of it in the daintiest, scantiest mouthfuls.

_And the prince?_

_A political pawn who would rather occupy himself with his experiments – he spends his time studying tiny ocean creatures – than with matters of state. His younger brother is the statesman of the family. He was the one to suggest that I be made one of his Highness’ betrothed’s ladies-in-waiting. She favors slender girls with golden hair, and there is no gossip to be had from a mute._

_Could you run away?_

_Run? I can barely walk. The witch’s magic is cursed; every step is like swimming through sawgrass._

My breath caught in my chest. This was swimming to escape a great white shark, only to end up caught in the cruelest of riptides.

_I’ll bring you something to eat. You can still eat oysters, can’t you?_

A weak smile.  _I could eat two dozen. Maybe three._

The next day, I stole through the kitchens and went hunting before finding a current that would take me to shore. I brought oysters and sea urchins and scallops and milksweet, and I let out a breath I did not even know I had been holding when I saw delight in the littlest princess’ eyes.

 _Come join me in the water. Maybe it will soothe the pain._  

A wry smile. _I would, but I can’t swim._

Down by the beach was a rockpool, just deep enough for sea anemones and starfish, but shallow enough that I could see the pebbles on its floor.

_Could you sit here, in the water?_

_I think so._

She slipped into the rockpool, still clad in her human garb. She ate greedily and joyously, and I was relieved that one pleasure, at least, had not been lost to her. Expression placid and untroubled, oyster brine dripping from her chin – we could have been on an adventure, our greatest worry only when we might steal away again.

_Do you remember the first time we met?_

_Of course. I was so hungry I thought I was having visions. You can’t imagine how good those oysters tasted._  She smiled, but it was a lost, wistful smile, and I could not bring myself to return it.

_There must be a way to undo this._

_What would you do? Turn the tide back to the eve of my betrothal? If I had left for the Far Seas, I would never see you again. At least I can still see you now._  

For all that the littlest princess seemed resigned to her fate, I took little comfort from her words. And so I went to seek out the witch.

The witch’s cave lay fairly close to the palace grounds, but it was surrounded by swift-moving currents that guarded it from all but the most daring or desperate of visitors. Upon fording the final current, I found myself in a thicket of long grass, and I was startled to see a figure emerge from its shadows.

Palace rumor marked the witch as a hag, a horror, a mer-woman as monstrous as a sea-cow. The figure before me was broad-shouldered, her tail as long and as muscled as that of the strongest palace guard. Though her hair was cropped short, it gleamed bright gold beneath a frosting of silver, and her eyes were nearly as blue as those of the littlest princess. Looking at her, I knew she was no outcast. She had chosen her place in the world.

“There you are. I wondered how long it would take for you to find me.”

Somehow, it didn’t seem surprising that the witch, too, signed as she spoke. She guided me into her cave, which was clean and well-lit with pots of glowgrass, and passed me a bladder of tea from a pot on the stove. I sucked it down greedily. It was rich and creamy and filled me with warmth.

“Milk tea with beach-plum brandy. Keeps out the chill. Another?”

I shook my head. My words were burning my fingers.

 _You made her mute_ , I began, keeping my gestures quick and harsh, but I wished for sound, I wished to be able to weep and wail as I raged at this woman.  _You curse her to feel pain with every step she takes._

She sighed. It was a long, weary sigh, and I could see it pass from her shoulders through her chest. Her gestures were careful and deliberate:

“Great magic demands great sacrifice. If not her voice, it would have taken her youth or her sight. I thought the loss of her voice the least of all evils. A pretty girl has her charms, even when mute. As for her pain, it is not of my doing. To make legs, I had to rend apart her tail. The body does not forgive such wrongs quickly or lightly.”

_What happens if the prince doesn’t fall in love with her?_

“You’ve been listening to the foolish legends of old. Humans live shorter livespans than we do, but much else is the same.”

_She left the ocean because she couldn’t starve in the palace any longer. She’s still starving, up on land._

“That’s beyond my power.”

_How can I undo this?_

“You can’t. Only she can.”

_How can **she**  undo this?_

 “Great magic demands even greater magic for its undoing. Blood sacrifice, the more powerful the better. Royal blood would be best. Her voice is lost, but she can have her tail back, good and whole.”

The witch held out a knife to me – a long, thin blade carved from the whitest of bone.

“Take this to her. She must make her choice by next daybreak.”

_What price must I pay for this?_

At this, the sea witch smiled. It softened her. “The currents say that you are a keen hunter and quick with a spear. I could use an apprentice,” she signed. “Oh, and fear not. We eat well here.”

***

_I went to see the witch. We can undo this._

_What did you do?_  The littlest princess’ eyes were frantic, scanning me from top to tail.  _What did she take from you?_

_Nothing. It wasn’t my trade to make._

I held out the bone knife. 

 _What am I to do with this?_ She took the blade from me warily, pinching the handle between thumb and forefinger.

_The witch said there would have to be a blood sacrifice. She said royal blood would be best. Your voice is lost, but you’ll have your tail back. You could come home.  
_

She moved to gesture, and then caught herself, setting the knife at the rockpool’s edge.

_If only it were that simple. You know what they’ll say. The stories they’ll tell. The foolish sea princess who fell in love with a land prince. Poor little princess. Lovelorn, mute princess. Do you know what that means?_

I stayed my hands. I hadn’t the words to explain. She would be cast aside, but not cast out. Forgotten, but also invisible. The closest we might ever come to freedom.

 _That was careless of me. Of course you know._  And then, with a sigh,  _But it’s what you’ve always known._

She picked up the knife again, tilting it so that the polished bone caught the light.

_How long do I have?_

_Until daybreak._

_Will you be here?_

_I’ll wait for you. I promise._

***

I wait. I wait hours in the harbor, head just above the water, as the stars dim and the sky lightens.

Finally, I see the prince at the water’s edge. The littlest princess follows.

 _Please_ , I sign. The words spill from my hands, frantic and furious:  _Please take the blade and sink it between his ribs, he’s only a human and I would trade his life for yours. I will go diving for scallops and we will feast on their sweetness, and I will catch the fattest tuna and carve its rich marbled flesh into steaks that we will hold between our hands and eat in greedy mouthfuls. I’ll apprentice with the witch and take care of you and you will never be hungry again, not a day in your life._

I wait for her to look up. Maybe it will be enough for her to see me, for me to wave to her. When the littlest princess finally sees me, she raises a hand. Her signs are quick and crisp: _I’ve made my choice._

I wait for her to come up behind the prince. Instead, she turns the blade and drives it into her own chest. For a moment, she freezes – a perfect princess cast in ice. Then her body collapses, dissolving like snow on the waves. There is no blood. Just a splash of seafoam, spilling like an accusation.

Above, the sun is starting to rise.


End file.
